


All We Want For Christmas

by Merixcil



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Established Relationship, M/M, Slice of Life, Some minor discussions of growing up in a cult, covid mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28363614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: Finn and Poe are planning on staying put for Christmas, but Poe's mom has other ideas
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	All We Want For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> What's better than publishing a Christmas fic two days after Christmas?
> 
> Written as part of the [Glasgow Fanfic Open Mic Night](https://twitter.com/GlasgowFanfic) Secret Santa for Syd

Finn was finally starting to see what the realtor had meant when she’d described this place as ‘cosy’ at the flat viewing. The glorified closet that passed for a living room and could barely fit a couch and TV on a good day had found space for a Christmas tree, the second-hand coat stand in the hall was strung up with tinsel and while Poe didn’t go in for Santa hats and Jingle Bells, he’d insisted on switching out their normal bedsheets for a red and gold set. The lights, the thick jumpers, the candles. It was so nice to come home to a space he actually wanted to exist in.

Kicking snow off his boots, Finn set down his shopping bags and closed the front door quietly. The faint mutter of Poe’s voice beyond the bedroom door let him know that his boyfriend was on a call, and with how thin the walls were that meant any noise above a whisper was right out. The United States Government might not have considered running multiple activist cells looking to stop deportations by any means necessary as a job, but Poe took his work very seriously and hated to be interrupted.

Finn shed his outerwear and crept to the kitchen to start unpacking groceries. He didn’t quite understand the reasoning behind everything on the list Poe had given him that morning, but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to leave the meat out of the fridge. Even if they were trying to go easy on the heating, they mostly managed to keep the flat above freezing.

Just as Finn started stacking tins at the back of the dry stores, the faint chatter from the bedroom swelled wildly. If he had been able to speak Spanish half as well as he wished he did, Finn would have caught most of what Poe was saying, but as things stood he could only make out the words ‘blue’, ‘terrible’ and ‘constipated’.

That last one didn’t sound quite right. Finn really was trying, despite Poe’s protestations that he didn’t have to. It was crazy watching him chatter away with his friend though, in words almost impenetrable to Finn; his posture and his mannerisms and his gestures all shifted when he slipped into Spanish. Not better or worse, just different. Finn so wanted to know that side of Poe and it was proving a source of deep frustration to him that no one bothered to teach him anything beyond English before he turned twenty one.

Of course, it didn’t help that all he had to go on were some ‘teach yourself’ books he had fished out of their local library’s discard pile; Poe, who didn’t have the patience to teach anyone anything and Rey, who collected languages like loose change but didn’t have the first clue as to how to explain the grammar of any of them.

The bedroom door flung open and Poe marched through to the kitchen, phone clutched to his ear and face stony. He started when he saw Finn, shooting him a quick smile before returning to whatever argument he was having with whatever agent in whatever field who was no doubt refusing to do things his way. Poe could adapt to other people’s way of thinking. Eventually. But you had to give him time, and it really helped if you weren’t expressly junior to him in any of the organisations he worked with.

Whatever this was, it was serious, or Poe would have cut to the chase and started screaming blue bloody murder down the phone. Finn could practically see his head swelling with the effort of keeping himself under control. He was very glad that Poe had taken a liking to him immediately. No one wanted to wind up in Poe’s bad books, but he was supportive to the point of stupidity with his friends. Nice and easy, no mind games or faked friendships, and God, Finn had needed that when they first met.

“Si. Te quiero, mama.” Poe hung up, setting the phone down on the table before stepping bac like it might burn him, one hand coming to rest on his hip as the other scratched at his brow. “Jesus.”

“That was your mom?” Finn raised an eyebrow. Poe loved his mom. In a good year he went to see her at least every other month and they spoke several times a week. He definitely didn’t make a habit of hanging up on her looking as exhausted as he did at the end of a fruitless all-nighter.

Por nodded. “She wants us to go to Boston for Christmas.”

The first thought that crossed Finn’s mind was ‘no way in hell are we doing that’ but the two therapy sessions he had ever sprung for had taught him, if nothing else, that the healthy thing to do was to count to three before he flew off the handle. “Right. I thought we agreed that-“

“Yeah. Yeah, I know we agreed. That’s still the plan.” Por assures him. “But she keeps talking about how she doesn’t go back to Guatemala to see the rest of the family at Christmas because she wants to celebrate with me and how it’ll be this huge let down if she can’t even do that. Like I arranged the whole fucking pandemic to get away from her. Seriously, Finn, if I don’t handle this right, she will drive up to New York and drag me out of the house.”

“I wouldn’t let her.” Finn said quickly.

Poe laughed a little at that. “Much as watching you try to summon the courage to look my mom in the eye would be pretty funny, I don’t think that’s gonna cut it. Sorry, I shouldn’t be putting this on you. You’ve got enough to worry about having to actually go to work to pay our bills. I just-“ He petered off into a drawn-out groan, hands fisting the air either side of his head. “How is she making me feel guilty for this?”

“Hey.” Finn was at Poe’s side in an instant, sliding a hand up his back and rubbing circles into the space between his shoulder blades. “You’ve just gotta explain to her that it’s not safe for us to travel right now.”

“It’s not safe for _her_! That fancy uptown bar practically has you licking the customer’s eyeballs. Who knows what we might drag over there.”

“Exactly! Just explain it to her. I’m sure she’ll get it.”

“You have way too much faith in my mother.” Poe said, but he relaxed a little, falling back against the pressure of Finn’s hand.

“Well, she can’t expect that you’re gonna go see her every Christmas forever, right? I thought you wanted to start doing some of the holiday stuff with me. Might as well rip the band aid off.”

Poe’s face pinched slightly. “I mean…I wanna do Christmas stuff with you, but that doesn’t stop me wanting to go see my folks at this time of year. It’s the only time I get to see most of my stateside family.”

“What, every year?” Finn thought back on the previous Christmas, when they’d only been dating a couple of months and talk of moving in together was still in the distant future of Finn’s next financial crisis. Poe had been out of town for a month and Finn had spent most of the holiday missing him desperately from the comfort of Rey’s couch.

Rey couldn’t have cared less about Christmas tradition and mostly just wanted to head to the supermarket on Boxing Day to cash in on the discounted food. Which was pretty sweet, as was having three full days off work. But Poe made Christmas sound like so much more than bargain bucket turkey and too much alcohol, and Finn was excited to find out what the big fuss was about.

“Yeah. I mean, It’s Christmas. And there are all these crazy traditions like setting the devil on fire and stuff. And lemme tell you, the shit you see churches doing up here is nothing on my mum’s nativity scenes. I wouldn’t even be thinking of missing it if it weren’t for this rat fuck virus.”

“What’s a nativity scene?” The words were familiar to Finn individually. Scene was easy, nativity slightly less so, but he wasn’t quite sure how they fitted together.

Poe stopped short, whipping round to face Finn. “What?”

“I don’t know! You said it.”

“No! It’s those…you know…the glowy things! The guys, like in the churchyard a couple of blocks down the way.”

“The angels?” Finn was lost. The church in question had certainly taken to the festive season with gusto but he couldn’t pretend to understand the significance of most of the light up figures currently littering its graveyard.

“No!” Poe shook his head. “It’s the baby Jesus being born, and everyone coming to see him. You know?”

Finn did not know. He stood perfectly still, unsure what the socially acceptable response to this situation was.

“How do you not know this?” Poe asked, bewildered.

Finn held out a hand. “Hi! I’m Finn. I was raised by a creepy cult that taught me other people’s festivals were sinful so I don’t know the first thing about most of the stuff other people structure their years around. Nice to meet you.”

“Shit.” Poe’s hand went back to worrying at his forehead in a stress salute. “Sorry. It’s really hard keeping up with what you don’t know.”

On escaping the Church of the First Order Finn had discovered two things in quick succession. First, that there was a whole lot of shit he didn’t know about the world and second, that people ascribed a moral value to the things he didn’t know. Like they thought he’d be able to understand what he’d been missing out of without first understanding the weight of culture and tradition behind it. It hadn’t helped that the first friend he’d made in this shining new world was a scruffy little orphan who did everything in her power to pretend not to care about anything that might have started stepping into the realm of sentiment.

“It’s fine.” Finn said, and it was. He ignored the odd angles of Poe’s arms and dragged him into a hug. He wanted to know all this stuff, even if it took a bit of time for him to catch on. He wanted to feel the same delight Poe did when people started talking about candy canes and stockings and Mariah Carey.

And church, apparently. Which Finn had only been to once since he made is great escape. It hadn’t been an entirely comfortable experience but it was a whole lot nicer than the prescriptive four hour masses he had grown up with.

“No! I should be teaching you all this stuff. Making sure you know what’s going on.” Poe let himself be manhandled, his arms hanging loose and his head resting heavy on Finn’s shoulder. “I talk a big game about how everyone deserves to be included but I can’t even get it right in my own home.”

“Poe, c’mon. You asked me to move in with you when we’d been dating for four months.”

“You didn’t even know that was weird!”

“But I know now! So I know you’ve been helping me get this stuff right from day one. You always make me feel like I’ve come home.”

“Yeah?” Poe’s eyes shone as he slipped a hand along Finn’s jaw, bringing them face to face.

Finn didn’t have time to say a thing before Poe was leaning in, kissing him and backing him up against the wall in the same movement.

It was a while before either of them could get a word in edgeways. But when they finally pulled apart, Poe reluctantly admitting that he had work to do, the tension had bled from his shoulders and he was smiling wide, his hair pure chaos where Finn had unintentionally mussed it.

As Finn went back to negotiating cupboard space, Poe grabbed a glass of water and headed back to the home office they had set up in one corner of the bedroom. He hadn’t been gone a minute before he stuck his head back round the kitchen door. “Hey, you got a shift tonight?”

“Nope.”

“Great.” Poe’s face split into a grin. “So, first I’m gonna talk you through the Jesus side of Christmas. My mom would kill me if I brought home a guy who didn’t know about his Lord and saviour.” Here he rolled his eyes, making no secret of the fact that he found religious talk to be a load of bunk

“I get to come to Christmas?” Finn perked right up at the suggestion.

Poe looked at him like he’d grown an extra head. “I’m not gonna leave you alone in New York to get wasted with Rey. What kind of guy do you think I am?”

The warmth pouring into Finn’s chest was overpowering, and he so very much wanted to jump up and kiss the smile, along with all thoughts of work, right off Poe’s lips. But Poe was already onto his next thought.

“And then I’m gonna call my mom and tell her once and for all that I’m not gonna be bringing you home this year.”

“Awesome.” Finn was sure his smile matched Poe’s beat for beat. “Seriously, that’s great. Please don’t let her talk you down.”

“I won’t.” Poe’s tone brokered no argument. “And you know what? We’ll probably have some evening left over once we’ve covered that.”

“And what are you suggesting we do with the rest of our evening?”

Poe waggles his eyebrows, smile not slipping an inch. “Whatever we want.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love! 
> 
> ome find me on [tumblr](https://jeffersonhairpie.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/rixywrites)


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